Scott’s sacking gives Essendon another chance to step out of Hird shadow

Source : ABC NEWS

After three and a half years, Essendon finds itself once again looking for its next senior coach after sacking Brad Scott.

Scott arrived at Essendon at the end of a deeply embarrassing 2022, which saw the Bombers make a clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at luring Alastair Clarkson to the club despite already having a senior coach in Ben Rutten.

One of the candidates Scott beat out for the role, Dean Solomon, will now replace him in the interim.

The runner-up to Scott, James Hird, could well replace him on a full-time basis.

Essendon president Andrew Welsh was emphatic in saying the Bombers “are not going backwards” when fronting the media after Scott’s exit.

Is Solomon and Hird being so closely linked to the job a sign of a club that will not go backwards? Time will tell.

Welsh’s tenure as president has already been rocky, despite being less than a year old.

Firstly, there was the decision to hold Zach Merrett to his contract despite a trade advance from Hawthorn. Despite Welsh talking tough again regarding Merrett, the entire football world expects him to be wearing different colours in 2027.

Secondly, there was his bold proclamation that Scott was Essendon’s next premiership coach, a proclamation that came just six weeks before his ousting.

When it comes to his words, Welsh is already standing on rocky ground. His next decision on who succeeds Scott will dictate how his presidency is seen in the years to come.

It will also prove whether Essendon has indeed turned the corner as a football club like it keeps insisting.

Throughout his regime as coach, Scott continually trumpeted the strides that had been made around Essendon, strides that largely remained invisible on game day.

No matter who Scott had out on the park, his sides were constantly unable to move the ball efficiently on the offensive end and struggled to show any level of consistent application and toughness on the defensive end.

In the end, there was no real identifiable game style and not enough internal improvement to warrant Essendon sticking with Scott.

An apparent lack of selection integrity did not help his case either.

Scott continually called out his senior players after losses this season, only to keep them in the side week after week. Ben McKay, Scott’s prized free agency recruit from the summer of 2023, was axed for a week before returning to face Richmond last Friday.

Scott’s management of Elijah Tsatas, the No.5 pick from the 2022 draft, was also a constant source of frustration among Essendon’s members.

Tsatas has played the least amount of games out of the top-10 from the 2022 draft class, and hasn’t been able to lock down a spot in Scott’s struggling midfield despite mostly excellent performances in the VFL. He has not played since Anzac Day, the last of three AFL appearances so far this season.

The prospect of losing Tsatas, who is out of contract at the end of the season, only to see him thrive at a rival club, is a tale far too familiar for Essendon, having seen Massimo D’Ambrosio and Patrick Voss blossom at Hawthorn and Fremantle, respectively.

Seeing Voss, who was delisted before being given a senior game at Essendon despite winning the VFL best and fairest in 2023, kick five goals against the Bombers in the Round 10 loss to Fremantle would not have pleased the club’s powerbrokers.

All of this is not to say that strides were not made during the Scott era.

Under Scott, Essendon overhauled its fitness staff, its recruiting department and turned over the list at an unprecedented rate.

Just 15 players remain at the club from the list that Scott inherited at the end of 2022. That number will likely get sliced even further this summer.

After topping up its list with big-name recruits in an ill-fated bid to win finals from 2017 to 2020, Essendon has made it a point to build through the draft over the last three seasons.

Unfortunately for Essendon, the ill-fated recruitment in the years preceding Scott’s arrival is what ultimately caused his tenure to come undone.

Yes, Essendon’s list contains a host of exciting young players such as Nate Caddy, Isaac Kako, Sullivan Robey, Archie Roberts, and others, but it is also devoid of senior leadership among players aged 27 and above.

Of Essendon’s 10 oldest players, only Brayden Fiorini has played in a winning final.

Essendon’s long-standing leaders — Merrett, Kyle Langford, Darcy Parish, Andrew McGrath, Jordan Ridley and Mason Redman — have all been at the club for more than a decade. You could argue that despite all their experience, none of them knows what a winning AFL program should look like.

Speaking after Scott’s ousting, McGrath said the players were “a little shocked”, “sad”, and felt “a lot of guilt”, but the truth is their performances left Essendon with no choice. Winning one game in the best part of a calendar year is only going to end in one way for the coach.

This is where Welsh’s decision to pick the coach matters most, because Essendon cannot afford its promising youngsters to end up where its current leaders have.

If Essendon gets its appointment right and the kids Scott has blooded become stars, then history will eventually be kind to his tenure, even with a winning percentage under 37 per cent.

Essendon will not be short of potential candidates in a coaching market that is as deep as it has been in recent years.

The Bombers can go for tried-and-tested coaches such as John Longmire, Nathan Buckley, Ken Hinkley, or Adam Simpson.

Then there are the untried coaches in waiting, headlined by former Essendon assistants James Kelly and Daniel Giansiracusa, with Saints assistant Corey Enright also in the mix.

Essendon needs to be mindful that a retread coach has not won a premiership since 2010, when Mick Malthouse won a flag with the Magpies at his third stop.

Whoever Essendon’s next coach is, they have a solid crop of youngsters to develop. You can add a likely top-five pick in this year’s draft, as well as the impending arrival of boom father-son prospect Koby Bewick in next year’s draft.

Scott’s successor has a solid base to build off in a way he did not, which makes the Essendon job appealing even with the club’s lowly ladder position.

The X-factor in all of this is Hird, whose shadow somehow continues to loom over every big decision Essendon makes despite being a central figure in the club’s darkest ever period.

Hird has constantly batted away questions about returning to Essendon, but the noise does not go away. Welsh’s refusal to rule him out of the running to be Scott’s successor won’t quieten the murmurs.

This is a clear demarcation point for Essendon to show the rest of the AFL world exactly how much it has changed.

Go back to Hird, and the narratives about the same old Essendon will be proven to be correct.

If the Bombers can resist that temptation and bring in good people from successful AFL programs, then the words of Welsh, Scott and others about how Essendon is actually different this time will ring true.